Daftar Isi

• NAME
• SYNOPSIS
• DESCRIPTION
  • Installation Prefix
  • SDK support
  • Universal Binary support
  • 64-bit PPC support
  • libperl and Prebinding
  • Updating Apple's Perl
  • Known problems
  • Cocoa
• Starting From Scratch
• AUTHOR
• DATE

NAME

perlmacosx - Perl under Mac OS X

SYNOPSIS

This document briefly describes Perl under Mac OS X.

  curl http://www.cpan.org/src/perl-5.12.3.tar.gz > perl-5.12.3.tar.gz 
 
  tar -xzf perl-5.12.3.tar.gz 
 
  cd perl-5.12.3
 
  ./Configure -des -Dprefix=/usr/local/
 
    make
 
    make test
 
    sudo make install
 

DESCRIPTION

The latest Perl release (5.12.3 as of this writing) builds without changesunder all versions of Mac OS X from 10.3 "Panther" onwards.

In order to build your own version of Perl you will need 'make'this is part of the Apples developer tools (you only need the 'unix tools'),usually supplied with Mac OS install DVDs. You do not need the latest version of Xcode (which is now charged for) in order to install make.

Earlier Mac OS X releases (10.2 "Jaguar" and older) did not include acompletely thread-safe libc, so threading is not fully supported. Also,earlier releases included a buggy libdb, so some of the DB_File testsare known to fail on those releases.

Installation Prefix

The default installation location for this release uses the traditionalUNIX directory layout under /usr/local. This is the recommended locationfor most users, and will leave the Apple-supplied Perl and its modulesundisturbed.

Using an installation prefix of '/usr' will result in a directory layoutthat mirrors that of Apple's default Perl, with core modules stored in'/System/Library/Perl/${version}', CPAN modules stored in'/Library/Perl/${version}', and the addition of'/Network/Library/Perl/${version}' to @INC for modules that are storedon a file server and used by many Macs.

SDK support

First, export the path to the SDK into the build environment:

 export SDK=/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.3.9.sdk
 

Use an SDK by exporting some additions to Perl's 'ccflags' and '..flags'config variables:

 ./Configure -Accflags="-nostdinc -B$SDK/usr/include/gcc \
 
   -B$SDK/usr/lib/gcc -isystem$SDK/usr/include \
 
   -F$SDK/System/Library/Frameworks" \
 
 -Aldflags="-Wl,-syslibroot,$SDK" \
 
 -de
 

Universal Binary support

To compile perl as a universal binary (built for both ppc and intel), exportthe SDK variable as above, selecting the 10.4u SDK:

 export SDK=/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk
 

In addition to the compiler flags used to select the SDK, also add the flagsfor creating a universal binary:

 ./Configure -Accflags="-arch i686 -arch ppc -nostdinc -B$SDK/usr/include/gcc \
 
   -B$SDK/usr/lib/gcc -isystem$SDK/usr/include \
 
   -F$SDK/System/Library/Frameworks" \
 
 -Aldflags="-arch i686 -arch ppc -Wl,-syslibroot,$SDK" \
 
 -de
 

In Leopard (MacOSX 10.5.6 at the time of this writing) you must use the 10.5 SDK:

 export SDK=/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.5.sdk
 

You can use the same compiler flags you would use with the 10.4u SDK.

Keep in mind that these compiler and linker settings will also be used whenbuilding CPAN modules. For XS modules to be compiled as a universal binary, anylibraries it links to must also be universal binaries. The system libraries thatApple includes with the 10.4u SDK are all universal, but user-installed librariesmay need to be re-installed as universal binaries.

64-bit PPC support

Follow the instructions in INSTALL to build perl with support for 64-bit integers (use64bitint) or both 64-bit integers and 64-bit addressing(use64bitall). In the latter case, the resulting binary will run onlyon G5-based hosts.

Support for 64-bit addressing is experimental: some aspects of Perl may beomitted or buggy. Note the messages output by Configure for further information. Please use perlbug to submit a problem report in theevent that you encounter difficulties.

When building 64-bit modules, it is your responsibility to ensure that linkedexternal libraries and frameworks provide 64-bit support: if they do not,module building may appear to succeed, but attempts to use the module willresult in run-time dynamic linking errors, and subsequent test failures.You can use file to discover the architectures supported by a library:

 $ file libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib 
 
 libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib: Mach-O fat file with 2 architectures
 
 libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib (for architecture ppc):  Mach-O dynamically linked shared library ppc
 
 libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib (for architecture ppc64): Mach-O 64-bit dynamically linked shared library ppc64
 

Note that this issue precludes the building of many Macintosh-specific CPANmodules (Mac::*), as the required Apple frameworks do not provide PPC64support. Similarly, downloads from Fink or Darwinports are unlikely to provide64-bit support; the libraries must be rebuilt from source with the appropriatecompiler and linker flags. For further information, see Apple's64-Bit Transition Guide at http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Conceptual/64bitPorting/index.html.

libperl and Prebinding

Mac OS X ships with a dynamically-loaded libperl, but the default forthis release is to compile a static libperl. The reason for this ispre-binding. Dynamic libraries can be pre-bound to a specific address inmemory in order to decrease load time. To do this, one needs to be awareof the location and size of all previously-loaded libraries. Applecollects this information as part of their overall OS build process, andthus has easy access to it when building Perl, but ordinary users wouldneed to go to a great deal of effort to obtain the information neededfor pre-binding.

You can override the default and build a shared libperl if you wish(Configure ... -Duseshrplib), but the load time on pre-10.4 OSreleases will be greater than either the static library, or Apple'spre-bound dynamic library.

With 10.4 "Tiger" and newer, Apple has all but eliminated the performancepenalty for non-prebound libraries.

Updating Apple's Perl

In a word - don't, at least without a *very* good reason. Your scriptscan just as easily begin with "#!/usr/local/bin/perl" as with"#!/usr/bin/perl". Scripts supplied by Apple and other third parties aspart of installation packages and such have generally only been testedwith the /usr/bin/perl that's installed by Apple.

If you find that you do need to update the system Perl, one issue worthkeeping in mind is the question of static vs. dynamic libraries. If youupgrade using the default static libperl, you will find that the dynamiclibperl supplied by Apple will not be deleted. If both libraries arepresent when an application that links against libperl is built, ld willlink against the dynamic library by default. So, if you need to replaceApple's dynamic libperl with a static libperl, you need to be sure todelete the older dynamic library after you've installed the update.

Known problems

If you have installed extra libraries such as GDBM through Fink(in other words, you have libraries under /sw/lib), or libdlcompatto /usr/local/lib, you may need to be extra careful when runningConfigure to not to confuse Configure and Perl about which librariesto use. Being confused will show up for example as "dyld" errors aboutsymbol problems, for example during "make test". The safest bet is to runConfigure as

 Configure ... -Uloclibpth -Dlibpth=/usr/lib
 

to make Configure look only into the system libraries. If you have someextra library directories that you really want to use (such as newerBerkeley DB libraries in pre-Panther systems), add those to the libpth:

 Configure ... -Uloclibpth -Dlibpth='/usr/lib /opt/lib'
 

The default of building Perl statically may cause problems with complexapplications like Tk: in that case consider building shared Perl

 Configure ... -Duseshrplib
 

but remember that there's a startup cost to pay in that case (see above"libperl and Prebinding").

Starting with Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4), Apple shipped broken locale files forthe eu_ES locale (Basque-Spain). In previous releases of Perl, this resulted infailures in the lib/locale test. These failures have been suppressedin the current release of Perl by making the test ignore the broken locale.If you need to use the eu_ES locale, you should contact Apple support.

Cocoa

There are two ways to use Cocoa from Perl. Apple's PerlObjCBridgemodule, included with Mac OS X, can be used by standalone scripts toaccess Foundation (i.e. non-GUI) classes and objects.

An alternative is CamelBones, a framework that allows access to bothFoundation and AppKit classes and objects, so that full GUI applicationscan be built in Perl. CamelBones can be found on SourceForge, athttp://www.sourceforge.net/projects/camelbones/.

Starting From Scratch

Unfortunately it is not that difficult somehow manage to break one'sMac OS X Perl rather severely. If all else fails and you want toreally, REALLY, start from scratch and remove even your Apple Perlinstallation (which has become corrupted somehow), the followinginstructions should do it. Please think twice before followingthese instructions: they are much like conducting brain surgery toyourself. Without anesthesia. We will not come to fix your systemif you do this.

First, get rid of the libperl.dylib:

 # cd /System/Library/Perl/darwin/CORE
 
 # rm libperl.dylib
 

Then delete every .bundle file found anywhere in the folders:

 /System/Library/Perl
 
 /Library/Perl
 

You can find them for example by

 # find /System/Library/Perl /Library/Perl -name '*.bundle' -print
 

After this you can either copy Perl from your operating system media(you will need at least the /System/Library/Perl and /usr/bin/perl),or rebuild Perl from the source code with Configure -Dprefix=/usr-Duseshrplib NOTE: the -Dprefix=/usr to replace the system Perlworks much better with Perl 5.8.1 and later, in Perl 5.8.0 thesettings were not quite right.

"Pacifist" from CharlesSoft (http://www.charlessoft.com/) is a niceway to extract the Perl binaries from the OS media, without having toreinstall the entire OS.

AUTHOR

This README was written by Sherm Pendley <[email protected]>,and subsequently updated by Dominic Dunlop <[email protected]>.The "Starting From Scratch" recipe was contributed by John Montbriand<[email protected]>.

DATE

Last modified 2006-02-24.